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Chapter 8
YOGA FOR SYMBOLIC PLAY
Play is the work of childhood.
Jean PiagetIntroduction to symbolic play
Around 18 to 24 months of age, toddlers acquire the capacity to
share their experiences symbolically through language, but also
through other means. One of them, symbolic play, is the capacity
of children to use objects and actions to stand for other objects
and actions. For example, a child might lift a block into the air
pretending it is an airplane or hold it to his ear as if it were a
phone. Language often accompanies these symbolic play actions.
For example, the child might say “plane go” in the first example
and “hi daddy” in the second. The linguist Halliday (1975) coined
the term “imaginative function” to describe the use of language to
accompany children’s early pretend play. This imaginative function
reflects children’s capacity to represent their world both through
words and play.
The emphasis on the importance of play in relationship to
children’s early language development is theoretically based on the
work of Piaget (1962), a biologist who became a renowned child
psychologist. According to his cognitive constructivist view, play
is one of several manifestations of the symbolic function, which
emerges when children have developed the capacity for mental